by Martha Long
My eyes fell on a very distinguished-looking man in his mid thirties. I stared at him. He’s not Irish. He had long blond hair with streaks of gold running through it, and it was combed straight back off his forehead and curled at the end over the collar of his white-and-royal-blue striped shirt. He was wearing a charcoal-grey pinstripe suit with French pleats gathered at the waist, with a very sharp crease in the leg and the trousers turned up at the bottom. The outfit was finished off with handmade black-leather shoes. He felt my eyes boring into him and looked over at me. I nodded my head to the door, indicating I wanted him to open it and let me out. His incredibly green eyes, they looked like emeralds, fell on me for a minute, then he slowly lowered his sweeping-brush eyelashes, hooding his green eyes, and looked away, dismissing me as if I was a bad smell, and went back to settling his mind on the business of what the group were discussing.
I waited. Nothing happened! He’s ignoring me. The bloody bastard stared straight through me. He is simply treating me with contempt. Creep! He has no class!
A white coat came along and opened the door. I followed him through. ‘Bath! I would like to take a bath, please,’ I murmured to the white coat’s back.
‘Ask at the desk,’ he shouted back to me, pointing to the desk.
‘I would if they would take any notice of me,’ I muttered to myself, strolling over to Mabel’s room.
I looked in the door. She was prostrate in the bed, unconscious. Her head was lolling to one side with her mouth hanging open and white stuff foaming out of the corners. I stared at her. Jesus! Is this their idea of helping people? Or are they helping themselves to have a quiet life?
I wandered over to the desk and knocked at the glass. Heads swung in my direction.
‘I would like to take a bath, please!’ I shouted. They looked bored and swung away again.
A white coat came flying through the door. ‘I would like to take a bath, please.’
‘Ask one of the nurses,’ he said, flying out the other door.
Another grey suit. ‘Could I have a bath please, Brother?’
‘Eh, yes! Ask one of the nurses.’
More staff came. ‘Bath! Canihaveabath, please!’ I breathed out in one sentence. My head was swinging on my shoulders, watching the traffic. It was like Piccadilly Circus at rush hour. No one took any notice of me. So I waited for the next batch. As soon as the door was opened by a white coat, I followed him through the other door, saying, ‘Thank you very much!’
I nearly made it. He pulled me back just as I was through into the women’s quarters.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
‘Just for a bath!’ I said.
‘No! Back you go!’ and he pushed me back in.
‘Fucker!’ I screamed after him in frustration, justifying their claim for my lock-up.
I was about to head into the men’s quarters and cause a stir when the door opened and a little round nurse with black curly hair came straight for me, saying, ‘Come on, Martha! Before you drive us all to distraction, I’m taking you for a bath.’
Ah! I exist after all, I thought, following her happily out through the door into the women’s quarters.
‘Now! Hang on and I’ll get you a towel. What else do you need?’
‘I have nothing, Nurse.’
‘Comb, soap, shampoo? OK! I’ll get some from one of the patients,’ she said, rambling off.
I rushed into the bathroom and turned on the hot tap. I grabbed a facecloth, giving the bath a wipe, making sure it was clean. Never know what you might catch! I thought, putting in the plug and watching with satisfaction as the boiling hot water poured in.
‘Here you are!’ she said, dropping a towel, soap, shampoo and even talcum powder, toothpaste and toothbrush and a comb. ‘You can change into these,’ she said, handing me a pair of yellow-striped pyjamas with St Oliver’s screaming across the front, letting everyone know I was a pauper! A loony pauper, at that! I looked at them.
‘When someone comes up to see you,’ she said kindly, ‘you can ask them to bring you your own stuff.’
‘Right!’ I said, wondering if and when that would happen.
‘I will be sitting outside waiting for you,’ the nurse said, letting me know I shouldn’t lose the run of myself with the excitement of getting out of the lock-up.
‘OK! Thank you very much, Nurse. It was very kind of you,’ I said, slamming the door and locking it, then diving into the bath and hopping up and down, getting burnt alive! I grabbed the cold tap, trying to balance my toes under it. It was bloody scalding. I never did have any sense and take my bloody time! Then I lowered myself gently into the water, gasping. That’s better – the only good bloody thing I can say about this place.
I poured half the shampoo onto the top of my head and ducked it under the water, washing away weeks of grease. Jesus! You could fry rashers on this hair, it’s so greasy! I took my time, letting the water out and pouring in more hot water. Ah! This is the life. I can take my time. I’m not rushing anywhere. Then there was a bang on the door.
‘Will you be much longer, Martha? I have the meds to give out!’
Me exhilaration dropped down into my belly and out through my toes. I could always leave her sitting out there! There’s not a thing they could do about it. I laughed to myself. Drive them all mad if she wasn’t so nice!
‘Coming, Nurse! I’m just rinsing my hair.’ I reluctantly pulled the plug, mixing the hot and cold water, and sticking my head under the tap to rinse off my hair, then climbed out of the bath.
‘Thanks, Nurse,’ I breathed, wrapping the towel around my head and following her back to lock-up. I sat on the bed for the rest of the morning, patiently trying to get the tangles out of my hair. It is waist-length, and I’m wondering if it’s worth all the bloody bother. Years ago, I got fed up with it – it was nearly tipping the ground. So I took myself into the hairdresser’s on pure impulse, foolishly asking them to give me a nice new hairstyle. I came out looking like something out of Charlie’s Angels. Raging I was! They charged me twenty-five quid. They cut it in one piece to sell it on again. That was the first and last time I ever showed my nose inside a hairdresser’s.
Grand! It’s finished. I let it hang down to dry naturally, and wandered into the toilet to admire myself in the mirror.
‘Jesus! The state of you!’ I muttered. I look like a bleedin skeleton! ‘Serves you right for not eating,’ I snorted, turning away from the mirror in disgust, and wandered out to the passage and sat down in my corner, still waiting for Godot.
31
* * *
‘Lunch!’ roared a white coat at me as he passed through, stopping and coming over to herd me into the dining room.
Right! I’m having my dinner! I thought, making for a table with a view of the courtyard. The room filled up quickly, with men shuffling in, some wondering where they were, others not caring, the pain written in their faces, eyes haunted by demons, and some having a private party all to themselves, laughing their heads off at nothing! Hmm! I took a deep sigh, looking around, wondering where the grub was. That bath had galvanised me appetite into action.
A stocky fella in a grey suit looking a bit like Quasimodo, with the long arms and the head to match, slapped down plates with bacon and cabbage and parsley sauce to the two men sitting opposite me. I waited patiently. He went off and came back carrying more plates to the table behind me. Then in front of me and beside me.
‘Excuse me!’ I said, when he came back to leave a glass of milk to the table beside me. ‘May I have some dinner, please?’
He looked at me then through me, and went off about his business. I watched him serving everyone but me. I was beginning to boil. Then I suddenly jumped up, shouting, ‘Keep your bloody food! I don’t want it.’
He glanced over at me and gave a slight smirk.
I erupted in rage and went tearing out of the dining room and raced for the big metal pot with the palm tree. With the anger surging through my veins, I lifted it, swin
ging it around like one of those Highland pole-throwers in Scotland. Faster and faster it went. In my ring-a-ring-a-rosy with the palm tree, I could see forks stuck in mid air, halfway to open mouths, eyes on stalks, and Quasimodo in his grey suit making a mad dash to stop me.
When he was two steps away, I let fly. Crash! It smacked into the wall, battering the bucket and scattering the moss peat and palm tree all in different directions. Then I tried to leg it!
Quasimodo grabbed me in a wrestler’s clinch, fixing my arms down by my sides and bending me in half.
‘Let me go, you big overgrown gorilla!’ I puffed.
He squeezed me tighter.
‘OK! I give up! Let go! I’m not resisting!’ I panted, the life squeezed out of me.
Other nurses came running to dig him outa the fray, but it was me who needed fucking rescuing!
He released me.
‘You great big bastard! Call yerself a Brother? The size a you! Using your big ignorant carcass to annihilate me! It’s no wonder you couldn’t get a woman, so you come hiding in here!’ I was heaving up and down, trying to get my breath and tell him what I thought of him. Two of the nurses marched me back to my room, and I sat down rigid, not moving an inch.
The hours passed; I sat without moving. Then the darkness crept in. Heads poked in the door from time to time. I just stared out at the darkness now coming down quickly. I stood up, arching my back, the stiffness in my bones giving me an idea of what it is to be ninety years old, then wandered over to the window and stared out. A mist was beginning to waft over the trees. It looked cold and damp out there, but I would swap it for this place any day.
I can handle that bastard, but it’s fucking cruel to behave like that in a place like this, where people are so vulnerable. There’s no way I’m setting foot in that dining room again. Let them do what they like! It would have been nice if he had smiled, said something kind, maybe asked me if I was OK. Treated me like a human being. But no! He deliberately ignored me. Probably because I refused breakfast. So he gets his kicks out of making people miserable, then tried to use me for wrestling practice. Twisted bastard.
Still, Martha, the eegit had to stop you, otherwise you would have gone for the dishes next. After you ran outa plants!
Yeah! But your man ignoring me had only reinforced my feeling of being terribly alone, that’s why I let fly. I wish I had someone who just cared about me. But life is not like that. People are always wanting something out of you. Well! They can all go and fuck themselves! I’m not giving to anyone any more.
‘Tea time!’
I looked around, seeing a nurse putting her head in the door and switching on the light. ‘What are you doing standing there in the dark?’ she asked, putting out her arm for me to follow her into the dining room.
I said nothing, just stared over at my bed.
‘Do you want any tea?’ she asked, tapping her fingers on the door impatiently, waiting to rush off.
I shook my head, heading over to the bed. She rushed out, and I switched off the light and climbed into bed, feeling very weary. Another day over. I heaved a sigh of relief, closing my eyes, and pulled the duvet around me, feeling myself falling into sleep.
‘Wakey, wakey!’
I sat up scratching my head, watching the lanky grey suit with the long, narrow face and a nose to match, with the jam-jar glasses, pushing his carafes of water. They were rattling all over the place and making enough noise to wake the dead.
‘Up you get,’ he said, leaning on his trolley, waving his arse in the air, pushing himself and the trolley out the door.
No mention of breakfast! Good! They’ve giving up trying to get me into the dining room, and I’ve given up eating. Except for a cup of tea. When I can get them to give me one. Right! What excitement have I lined up for today? Smoke! I grabbed my tobacco and started rolling. Where would I be without these? Thank you, Walter Raleigh! Without you introducing us to the cancer weed we would be all dead and buried for the want of a bit of comfort! Yep! Always me favourite bit of comfort.
I stood up, snatching my wash things, and waited patiently by the other door, hoping for someone to let me out then be prepared to do the guard duty required when I take a bath, in case I managed to find something to break the bullet-proof glass or throw myself down onto the courtyard! Hmm! Not my style!
‘Martha!’ The little blond-haired white coat came strolling up to me, looking all businesslike. ‘You are now to follow me!’
I followed him into Mabel’s room.
‘In that bed!’ he said, pointing to the window.
I looked at Mabel sitting on the side of her bed, following first him, then me, with her huge blue puppy-dog eyes. She was drooling, spits coming out of the side of her mouth, and there was something green around her nose.
‘Absolutely not!’ I screeched, walking out of the room. ‘I like having my own room!’
‘Come on! This is your new room. Now be nice to Mabel!’ he shouted, waving at Mabel. She looked like she was going to cry again.
‘This has nothing to do with Mabel!’ I roared, looking at Mabel.
She gave me a smile, showing me more spits, thick ones, coming out in bubbles.
I rushed back into my own room, slamming the door, and tried to grab the locker, pulling it in front of the door.
‘Come out of there! This is not your room any more,’ he shouted, heaving in the door, me trying to stop him by leaning into the locker. But I was too puny. No feeding in me. ‘Do you want to swap beds?’ he asked me, bending down ready to move my bed.
I gave up. ‘No!’ I said, giving out a big sigh. ‘I’ll move!’
‘Good girl,’ he said, grabbing my arm and rushing me into Mabel’s room.
‘Nurse! Don’t call me . . .’
‘Brother!’ he said, interrupting me. ‘I’m Brother Marcus!’
I looked at the size of him. He looks about twenty-five!
‘Well, Brother! I don’t like being called “girl”. It’s patronising! And just for the record, I’m older than you.’
‘Why? How old do you think I am?’ he asked, grinning.
‘Anything from twenty to twenty-five!’ I said. ‘So! As I was saying . . .’
‘I’m thirty!’ he said.
‘Well, anyway,’ I said, ignoring him, ‘You can call me . . .’ I was thinking the formal ‘Miss’ was now gone. I looked at him, feeling very frustrated at losing my self-respect and being treated like an idiot by these morons. ‘Just don’t call me girl!’ I screamed.
‘Certainly, madam!’ he laughed. Then he was gone out the door.
I wanted to scream. I looked down at Mabel staring up at me with her mouth open, dribbles everywhere. ‘Mabel!’ I said, marching down to my new bed by the window. ‘This is my area, and down there is yours! OK?’
She shook her head, agreeing with me.
‘And don’t speak to me. I don’t want to talk!’ Then I climbed into the bed, turning on my side, and stared out the window, fuming! I hate change!
32
* * *
I was just dozing off with a thought rolling around in my head: Go for your bath! Go and take your bath! Later! was my last thought, feeling very lazy.
I woke up with the sound of a piercing scream. My head shot up in the bed, my heart pounding. Whatwasthat? Then I looked to where the noise was coming from.
Mabel had her bed turned upside down, and she was wrestling with the duvet. She got herself tangled up trying to shred it and everything else she could get her hands on.
‘Mabel!’ I shrieked, and the frenzied movement in the duvet suddenly stopped, and she tore herself free, pulling the duvet from around her head, and stared up at me from the floor. ‘Stop that fucking messing at once!’ I glared at her. ‘I am trying to get some sleep here!’ I said slowly and with menace.
Her chin started to wobble, then her mouth opened ready to give another blast!
‘Don’t you dare open your mouth! Now get up from that floor and put that bed back
.’
Her eyes flickered, uncertain whether she was on safe ground.
‘Now!’ I roared.
She leapt to her feet, fastening her eyes on me, and started to lift the bed, bending down quickly to lift the bedclothes from the floor and hump them back on the bed, still all the time never taking her eyes off me.
I sat still, glaring at her. ‘And the locker!’ I said, pointing.
She turned in a flash, grabbing the locker from the floor and righting it.
‘Now! Make up your bed and tidy this place up, and when I get back we can go and have a shower,’ I said, marching out to the toilet. ‘OK?’ I stopped at her bed, waiting for a response, and she shook her head up and down, the steam gone out of her. ‘Now give us a smile!’
She stared at me, not ready to give up everything.
‘Go on!’ I bent my head to her, and she opened her mouth, giving a beautiful smile. I stared at her. ‘Mabel! You have a beautiful smile, and you are really very pretty! Smile more, and the world will smile with you. Now! Get yourself ready. I’m going to get the nurse to let us out.’
‘OK!’ she said timidly.
I came out of the toilet and sauntered over to the desk and banged on the window. A tall hatchet-faced nurse with thin balding hair swung around and snapped, ‘What do you want?’
‘Bathroom, please! Two of us need to keep the regulation standard of hygiene. We need someone to let us out.’
‘I’m busy!’ she snapped. ‘You will have to wait!’
‘No problem, Nurse. When Mabel’s relatives come to see her, I’ll make sure to tell them she wasn’t allowed to take a bath! You were too busy keeping her sedated and not taking care of her basic needs!’ I snorted, slapping my hands rapidly on the desk, drumming out a lovely beat.
